To Be Brothers
by AkitaFallow
Summary: You don't mess with time, even accidentally. Harry Potter learned that the hard way. Fate has never been kind to him, and this new era he's landed in will force him to adapt, or die trying. Fortunately, he has all the time in the world... literally.


**I must be crazy for starting another fic right now, but I find myself stuck too often with just one muse to work with. And this idea popped practically fully formed in my head because of one small, insignificant paragraph in OotP. I've been stewing over it for a good year now, and have decided that it's worth it. This prologue may be short (and the first two thirds belong to Rowling), but this is just the beginning.**

**Welcome to 'To Be Brothers'. Fasten your seat belts, folks, because we're in for a wild ride...**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own this. The ideas for Harry Potter and Rurouni Kenshin belong to J.K. Rowling and Nobuhiro Watsuki, respectively. I don't even own half the text in this chapter. That comes from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, pages 694-696.  
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**Warnings:**** For now... nothing much. Excessive irony, perhaps, and shameless use of another author's writing and characters for my own enjoyment.  
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_Prologue: Timing Is Everything_

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"NOW!" yelled Harry.

Five different voices behind him bellowed, "_REDUCTO_!" Five curses flew in five different directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit; the towering structure swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart, pearly-white figures unfurled into the air and floated there, their voices echoing from who knew what long-dead past amid the torrent of crashing glass and splintered wood now raining down upon the floor—

"RUN!" Harry yelled, as the shelves swayed precariously and more glass spheres began to fall from above. He seized a handful of Hermione's robes and dragged her forwards, holding one arm over his head as chunks of shelf and shards of glass thundered down upon them. A Death Eater lunged forwards through the cloud of dust and Harry elbowed him hard in the masked face; they were all yelling, there were cries of pain, and thunderous crashes as the shelves collapsed upon themselves, weirdly echoing fragments of the Seers unleashed from their spheres - Harry found the way ahead clear and saw Ron, Ginny and Luna sprint past him, their arms over their heads; something heavy struck him on the side of the face but he merely ducked his head and sprinted onwards; a hand caught him by the shoulder; he heard Hermione shout, "_Stupefy_!" The hand released him at once—

They were at the end of row ninety-seven; Harry turned right and began to sprint in earnest; he could hear footsteps right behind him and Hermione's voice urging Neville on; straight ahead, the door through which they had come was ajar; Harry could see the glittering light of the bell jar; he pelted through the doorway, the prophecy still clutched tight and safe in his hand, and waited for the others to hurtle over the threshold before slamming the door behind them—

"_Colloportus_!" gasped Hermione and the door sealed itself with an odd squelching noise.

"Where—where are the others?" gasped Harry.

He had thought Ron, Luna and Ginny were ahead of them, that they would be waiting in this room, but there was nobody there.

"They must have gone the wrong way!" whispered Hermione, terror in her face.

"Listen!" whispered Neville.

Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed; Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar, "Leave Nott, _leave him, I say_—his injuries will be nothing to the Dark Lord compared to losing that prophecy. Jugson, come back here, we need to organize! We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary—Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left; Crabbe, Rabastan, go right—Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead—Macnair and Avery, through here—Rookwood, over there—Mulciber, come with me!"

"What do we do?" Hermione asked Harry, trembling from head to foot.

"Well, we don't stand here waiting for them to find us, for a start," said Harry. "Let's get away from this door." They ran as quietly as they could, past the shimmering bell jar where the tiny egg was hatching and unhatching, towards the exit into the circular hallway at the far end of the room. They were almost there when Harry heard something large and heavy collide with the door Hermione had charmed shut.

"Stand aside!" said a rough voice. "_Alohomora_!"

As the door flew open, Harry, Hermione and Neville dived under desks. They could see the bottom of the two Death Eaters' robes drawing nearer, their feet moving rapidly.

"They might've run straight through to the hall," said the rough voice.

"Check under the desks," said another.

Harry saw the knees of the Death Eaters bend; poking his wand out from under the desk, he shouted, "_STUPEFY_!"

A jet of red light hit the nearest Death Eater; he fell backwards into a grandfather clock and knocked it over; the second Death Eater, however, had leapt aside to avoid Harry's spell and was pointing his own wand at Hermione, who was crawling out from under the desk to get a better aim.

"_Avada_—"

Harry launched himself across the floor and grabbed the Death Eater around the knees, causing him to topple and his aim to go awry. Neville overturned a desk in his anxiety to help; and pointing his wand wildly at the struggling pair, he cried:

"_EXPELLIARMUS_!"

Both Harry's and the Death Eater's wands flew out of their hands and soared back towards the entrance to the Hall of Prophecy; both scrambled to their feet and charged after them, the Death Eater in front, Harry hot on his heels, and Neville bringing up the rear, plainly horrorstruck by what he had done.

"Get out of the way, Harry!" yelled Neville, clearly determined to repair the damage.

Harry flung himself sideways as Neville took aim again and shouted:

"_STUPEFY_!"

Harry liked to think that, over the past year with the DA, Neville's aim had improved. Later, he'd try to tell himself that it was probably just the heat of the moment that made him miss like he did; that it was just the adrenaline, the fear, and the desperation, that made the spell fly wide.

Or maybe the other boy's aim really was that bad—in which case, Harry really didn't have anyone to blame but himself for not teaching him better.

Of course, Harry would still blame himself regardless. After all, it was he who dodged in the wrong direction.

The jet of red light had flown right over the Death Eater's shoulder and hit a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall full of variously shaped hour-glasses; the cabinet fell to the floor and burst apart, glass flying everywhere, sprang back up on to the wall, fully mended, then fell down again, and shattered—

All this, Harry noticed peripherally as he tried to regain his footing after throwing himself to the side during his sprint.

It was only an unlucky chance that had Harry dodging to the left instead of the right, as he should have.

It was only an unfortunate coincidence that had one of the flagstones on the floor jutting up just slightly, where an Unspeakable had decided to hide a rare Chocolate Frog card depicting Flavius Belby and had not replaced the stone quite straight.

It was only an ironic twist of fate that had the sole of one of Harry's well-loved sneakers catch against the slightly misplaced stone and, with a noise that sounded remarkably like a sigh of defeat, finally give out and rip from the bottom of the worn shoe.

And it was only that pure, unadulterated brand of Harry Potter Bad Luck™ that had the resulting spectacle of momentary panic and flailing limbs end in a not-so-graceful head-first dive into the wall precisely beneath the cabinet, which was in the process of shattering into thousands of pieces once more.

It wasn't until later that Harry finally determined that the cabinet, before it was destroyed, held exactly thirteen time turners, each with a time travel limit of three hours into the past. What he didn't know at the time—after all, he had done very little perusal of time turners before the debacle in third year, and even then had not bothered to figure out the mechanics behind the strange devices—was that the use of multiple time turners at once increased the travel limit exponentially, in a way that he would have only expected Hermione to calculate. Though, to be fair, it was hardly his fault that this lack of knowledge existed. Even if he had looked in the Hogwarts library, he would not have found anything of note, because no one had ever attempted such a risky venture.

As shards of glass, bits of metal, an unfortunately large piece of wood, and a fine dusting of sparkling white sand rained down on him, he had only a second to turn his head and see Hermione's eyes go wide from where she was still hiding beneath a desk. Before he could do anything more—though he wasn't sure what; perhaps he should have smiled at her in reassurance, or tried to summon his wand by will alone, or even said some kind of witty final remark that they would have remembered him by—he felt something pull on his magic as the time turners reversed.

And so it was that, with a strange lurch in his stomach that had nothing to do with feeling ill, Harry Potter was catapulted one hundred eighty one years, ten months, sixteen days, and three hours into the past.

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**This fic is going to be epic length. I kid you not. It will not be short, it will not be simple, and it most certainly will not fit into just one fic. Everything I have planned for this is enough to fill a number of notebooks. I know I'm diving into very turbulent waters with this undertaking, but I can proudly say that, unlike MTJAM, I have the majority of the timeline planned out and ready to write once my wrists cooperate more fully and real life allows me. So get comfortable, we're in this for the long haul!**

**There are going to be a lot of complex concepts in this. Everything will be explainable. Calculating the exact amount of time Harry's sent back by how many time turners will seem like child's play. (And if anyone wants to check my math, be my guest. Logarithms and exponents are required.) Hopefully, I will be able to accurately convey those concepts and the ideas involved with them without burning someone's eyes out or confusing the mass population.**

**I will say now that, once this fic gets going, there will be a lot of things left unexplained for extended periods of time. I have yet to decide exactly where in the storyline each plot point will be revealed—be it in flashbacks or in actual explanations—without making the storytelling disjointed or revealing information prematurely and letting things become predictable. That will be the hardest part to figure out, and will likely be the reason I do not update for awhile.**

**I will also warn you just this once: Everything I write will be entirely intentional. Watch for clues, and perhaps you'll figure things out before the others do. ;)**

**If you are willing to spend the next few years with me on this epic journey, then step right up and let me know through your fabulous reviews and favourite/alert subscriptions. Because I'm writing it for you, my wonderful readers!**

**-AkitaFallow**


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